Meredith buys Time with help from Kochs
A long chapter in media history came to an unlikely close Sunday night.
The Meredith Corp. — the owner of Family Circle, Better Homes and Gardens and AllRecipes — agreed to purchase Time Inc. in an all-cash transaction valued at nearly $3 billion. The deal was made possible, in large part, by an infusion of $650 million from Charles and David Koch, the billionaire brothers known for using their wealth and political connections to advance conservative causes.
Meredith would seem to be an unusual suitor for Time Inc., which in addition to its flagship magazine Time also publishes People, Fortune, Sports Illustrated and InStyle.
“This is a transformative transaction for Meredith Corporation,” Tom Harty, Meredith’s president and chief operating officer, said in the Iowa company’s statement announcing the agreement.
Meredith had arranged for the cash infusion from the Koch brothers through their private equity arm, Koch Equity Development.
Charles Koch, chief executive of Koch Industries, and David Koch have long sought to shape political discourse through their support of nonprofit organizations, universities and think tanks but have never owned their own media company. But in its announcement of the deal, Meredith said that Koch Equity Development would not have a seat on Meredith’s board of directors and would “have no influence on Meredith’s editorial or managerial operations.”
The sale of Time Inc. almost certainly signifies coming changes at the celebrated magazine publisher founded by Henry R. Luce and Briton Hadden in 1922. In a note to its staff members Sunday night, Rich Battista, chief executive of Time Inc., said he believed in “our strategic transformation plan and in our ability to write the next great chapter of this storied company.”